News and Events
News:
Publication and launch of Exhuming Passions: the Pressure of the Past in Ireland and Australia, edited by Katie Holmes and Stuart Ward, Irish Academic Press 2011
On October 5, at Boston College, the Australian Ambassador, Mr. Bruce Davis and the Irish journalist and novelist, Mr. Ed O’Loughlin, launched Exhuming Passions.
Edited by two former Keith Cameron Professors, Katie Holmes and Stuart Ward, the book is the result of collaboration between eighteen scholars hailing from twelve different universities in Ireland and Australia.
Exhuming Passions is a collection of writing by leading Australian and Irish scholars about different ways in which rival interpretations of the past vie with each other for attention and influence in the public domain. In both Ireland and Australia, remembrance of the past is often bitterly disputed and becomes a means of waging contemporary conflict.
The book deals with highly topical issues such as the ways in which war is remembered and commemorated; governments apologise for the wrongs of previous generations; film and literature construct the past; and, not least, the ways in which private and public memory are deployed for contested social, cultural and political purposes.
Exhuming Passions is available now!
Events: 2011
On Tuesday 5 April, Keith Cameron Chair, Professor Mark McKenna, delivered a paper in the UCD History and Archives Seminar Series on ‘Writing the life of an historian: Manning Clark Australian History and the Eye for Posterity’.
On Wednesday 13 April the UCD Australian Studies Centre joined forces with UCD’s Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland to present two guest lectures on the Social Determinants of Aboriginal Health. Dr. Jenny Baker (Adelaide University) and Associate-Professor Tracey Bunda (Flinders University) delivered a stimulating presentation on the vexed history of Aboriginal disadvantage in Australia and the present-day policy dilemmas faced by governments and policy makers. As indigenous scholars, they brought a unique perspective to bear on the ‘Social Determinants of Aboriginal Health’.
On Wednesday 11 May, Professor Bain Attwood, one of Australia’s leading scholars on indigenous history, delivered a lecture in the Australian Studies Seminar series on Australian Aboriginal Rights in Land: Historiographical Error and Historiographical Knowledge.
On October 27, Keith Cameron Chair, Mark McKenna, delivered the Trevor Reece Memorial Lecture at King’s College London. This lecture is a regular feature of the annual Arts and Humanities Festival at King’s College, and is presented by the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies in London. Mark McKenna spoke on the challenges of writing biography for historians. The lecture will be published in early 2012 and available from the Menzies Centre in London
Forthcoming events
Centrelink: University of Copenhagen
On 25 November, the Keith Cameron Chair, Mark McKenna will take part in discussions with the chairs of key Australian Studies centres in Britain and Denmark. The theme of this year’s Centrelink is ‘Australian Lives’.
Presentation to outstanding students in Australian History
On Monday December 5 at 3.30pm, the Australian Ambassador, Mr. Bruce Davis, will present on behalf of the Australian government, the latest donation of Australian books to UCD Library.
He will also present the UCD School of History and Archives Australian Essay Prize for 2011.
Cameron Lecture 2011
On Thursday December 8, in the UCD School of History and Archives, Professor Carl Bridge will deliver the 2011 Keith Cameron Lecture: ‘Billy Hughes versus Daniel Mannix, 1916-20: Two Kinds of Australian Patriotism'.
Carl Bridge is Professor of Australian Studies and Director of the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King’s College London. He grew up in Sydney where he took his BA in History at the University of Sydney. He has a PhD in History from the Flinders University of South Australia. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He taught in the History Departments at Flinders and the University of New England before his appointment to his current position in 1997. He has held visiting fellowships at Churchill College and Clare Hall, Cambridge, the National Library of Australia, and the Australian Prime Ministers Centre, Canberra. His most recent books include The High Commissioners (2009), Australia and the United Kingdom, 1960-1975 (2010) and William Hughes (2011). He is a regular commentator on British and international television and radio. He keeps wicket for the Australian High Commissioner’s XI and the Long Vacation XI Jesus College, Cambridge.
